DUNEDIN, Fla. – Chris Smith knew that Alamogordo, New Mexico, was one of the last outposts of baseball’s independent leagues. He was that desperate for a job. But he knew he had hit bottom when his new boss handed him his contract.

There was a zero on the salary line.

“It literally had a zero with a line through it,” Smith recalled. “I said, ‘So what am I doing?’ He said, ‘You have to earn your money.’ He said, ‘As a reliever you make 50 bucks a week and as a starter you make 70 bucks.’ I had two appearances out of the pen, and I said, ‘You know what, I want to be a starter. I want that extra 20 bucks a week. That might buy me a few meals at McDonald’s.’”

Alamogordo is the home of the White Sands Pupfish of the last-chance Pecos League. If you're wondering whether the pupfish is a real fish, indeed it is. It is a tiny, threatened species found in a few desert pools and streams of the southwest United States, and its...